Stress and Heart disease

Worry and stress affects the circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system, and profoundly affects heart action.  ~  Charles W. Mayo

 

Stress is the body’s reaction to wear and tear. Every activity sets up a stress. Most diseases stem from this common cause.  It is important to understand that emotions influence body health. As such, stress is not the culprit. The trouble arises when it is prolonged or when it comes too often or when it is concentrated on any one particular organ in the body. The stressor sets off the adrenalin glands which force adrenalin into the system. When the excitement is over, the body quickly reverts to normal activities. Stressors need not necessarily be violent. For example, a gentle stroking on your forehead may help you drop off to a sleep. Emotional stress is useful in many ways. A new job can be very exciting, which will make you handle the job with greater efficiency.  An exciting match peps you up, any let down followed is healthy relaxation. If it weren’t for stress, you would be living like a vegetable. The stress that is destructive is the one that you don’t recognize. It comes from persistent anger, fear, frustration and worry.

 

Stress is vital to life. It is the accumulation of stress and interaction of unwanted emotions which accumulate, that break a person.  Stress is not the great danger, but it’s effects are. Stress syndrome comprises of 3 stages. First there is an alarm. This is the body’s response to any stressor agent. These can be any infectious organisms, chemicals, hormones, cold, heat, radiation, trauma, pain. Next, there is resistance. Certain hormones are produced by certain glands in the body which either repel the stress or seek to establish an acceptable way of adapting to it.  Finally, there is exhaustion. This happens when stress is prolonged and the body’s mechanism which is trying to adapt to the stress breaks down. The secret of health lies in the successful adjustment to the changing stress. The failure of adaptation is ill health and unhappiness. 

 

When people refer to stress, they are often talking about 2 different things; physical stress or emotional stress. Most of the medical literature on stress and heart disease refers to physical stress. But most people are referring to the emotional variety when they talk about stress and heart disease. Being able to identify stressors in your life and releasing the tension they cause are the keys to managing stress. When you are exposed to long periods of stress, your body gives warning signals that something is wrong. These physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioural warning signs should not be ignored. They tell you that you need to slow down. If you continue to be stressed and you don't give your body a break, you are likely to develop health problems like heart disease. You could also worsen an existing illness.

 

Mental demands, more characteristic of modern-day life, are different from physical demands. They do not abate—there’s always more to do—and hence the demands may be more continuous. Meeting mental demands requires lower, but on going, levels of stress hormones and fatty fuels. Yet, the physiological response to a situation is the same whether it calls for physical work or mental work. When the work to be done is mental, the hormones and fats that have been mobilized for action are not used up. The unnecessarily high heart rate and blood pressure set up a condition of increased turbulence in the bloodstream, which in turn increases the tension on the walls of the arteries; this is particularly the case in the coronary arteries, which provide the heart with its own supply of nourishment. The increased turbulence and the circulating stress hormones may damage the lining of the arteries. When such damage occurs, platelets in the blood (which are also mobilized by the stress hormones) adhere to the injured walls in an attempt to promote a healing process. Unfortunately, the healing process results in a thickening of the arterial wall—setting the stage for a possible blockage. The thickened wall attracts other substances in the blood, most notably low-density cholesterol (LDL), which is produced by the body from mobilized fat left over from the behavioural stress response. Over time, some scientists believe, this process may also result in a speeding up of the process of atherosclerosis in the coronary arteries. It is this process of stress reactivity that many believe plays a key role in the development of atherosclerotic heart disease.

 

Whatever the cause of stress, when the narrowing that has developed in a coronary artery grows to the point that blood flow is significantly reduced, stress can lead to a condition known as myocardial ischemia. This condition occurs when the amount of blood reaching heart tissue through the coronary arteries is not enough to support the pumping work the heart is doing. How can stress make this happen? Remember, the stress hormones cause the heart to pump harder and faster. If the blockage in the coronary arteries is severe enough, the heart may reach a point where its work cannot be supported by the amount of blood that can pass through them. Moreover, while the stress hormones cause a normal, healthy artery to dilate—that is, open wider to allow more blood to pass—they may cause an artery that is diseased by blockage to constrict or become narrower, reducing the flow of blood even further. As an example, when the blockage reaches 90%, the constriction caused by the stress hormones during a stress response and the blood platelets mobilized by the hormones during this response can actually cause the remaining 10% to be closed off, resulting in a heart attack.